


I want you to know (it's enough for me)

by ceaseandexist



Category: Little Mix (Band), One Direction (Band)
Genre: F/M, Forgiveness, Harry endangers himself by attempting to help build, Infidelity, OT5 construction team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-24
Updated: 2014-11-24
Packaged: 2018-02-26 20:01:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2664551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceaseandexist/pseuds/ceaseandexist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired somehow by the time the Australian waitress sold a story to the press about Zayn cheating on Perrie with her.</p><p>Set one year later: In which Perrie's away, Zayn can't paint and they may or may not be fighting. Obviously the boys get involved in an OT5 construction love-fest in an attempt to help Zayn solve all his problems, but nothing goes the way they expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I want you to know (it's enough for me)

**Author's Note:**

> Basically, I saw how gorgeous Zayn looked at the AMAs tonight and couldn't handle it, so I logged off tumblr and dug through all the bits and pieces of fic I've written and found this from six months ago. 
> 
> There's not nearly enough Zerrie fic in this fandom, so here you go. 
> 
> Title from Ed Sheeran's "Tenerife Sea"

The thing is, Zayn and Perrie are in a good place. Really, they are. They had a nice break together, spent the holidays with both of their families, rented an ice rink for the garden and went out nearly every night as they clung to each other and tried to stay upright on the slippery ice. They were able to go to bed wrapped up in each other and woke up together nearly every night for a month, and it was just as good as Zayn always imagined it would be.

But then Perrie had to go back to work, left for Asia while Zayn stayed home on break, and it’s like …

Zayn can’t paint, just can’t, and it’s the most frustrating thing in the world. He finally has time off, got back from Bradford yesterday and woke up early (before noon even) with grand plans of spending all day filling in the far wall of his graffiti room, but he just … can’t. He picks up a can and feels like it’s not the right color, or settles on the right color but has no idea what shape he wants to make with it. Zayn has a few scribbly lines on the wall, but nothing real.

It’s fine, really. He’s not painting for anyone but himself, but he wanted to do this, ached to do it while he was lying in his bunk on the bus or coming down off the high of a show and now that he finally has the opportunity and just can’t paint, it’s … well it’s enough that Zayn has already gone through a full pack of cigarettes and it’s not yet 5 o’clock.

There’s plenty else Zayn can do, like unpack his bag from home or empty the dishwasher that’s full of dishes from before he left or hang up the awards he’s collected over the last 12 months that are piling up in one of the guest rooms.

But he wants to paint. Instead, he pops open a can of beer and collapses on the sofa in front of the TV.

Zayn’s antsy. He can’t settle on anything and it grows more annoying by the hour. It’s been like this since Perrie left five days ago, even when he was up in Bradford with his cousins, and it’s worse now that he’s back in London.

Zayn’s stomach flips a bit when he thinks about it too much, about Perrie being gone and him feeling all weird, because it’s not like they aren’t away from each other all the time. He should be better with it at this point. Plus, nothing good ever comes of it when he’s antsy and unsettled. He knows that from last time. 

Zayn abandons his attempt to find anything half decent on TV and types a quick text to Perrie to see if they’re still on for a Skype date that night, but he thinks better of it and erases it before he can send it. He texts Louis instead to see if he’s in town, and luckily Louis gets back to him quickly. Eleanor has exams so Louis has nothing better to do than play FIFA by his lonesome in London. He shows up at Zayn’s less than 20 minutes later.           

The nice thing about Louis is that his personality is so big that he easily fills any empty space in a given room, and by the time he slides onto one of the stools at Zayn’s counter, he’s already dumped a hoodie and a pile of video games on the rug in the lounge and left his shoes haphazardly strewn across the floor.

“Didn’t say you could make a mess of my house,” Zayn says with a grin as he slides a plate of samosas over to Louis.           

Louis takes a bite and sighs. “These are leftovers, right?” he asks. Zayn nods and Louis tips his head back appreciatively. “Trisha Malik, you absolute G.”

Zayn laughs and takes his plate over to the counter. He stands across from Louis while he eats. Even sitting down feels too still for Zayn.

“This all you been doing since you got back from Bradford, stuffing your mouth with leftovers?” Louis asks with his mouth full.

Zayn shrugs and pushes his curry around the plate. He’s actually not very hungry now that he thinks about it. “Pretty much. Nothing to do.”

“It’s amazing, innit.” Louis says. He leans back in his seat and takes a sip of his beer. “No work. Just sat on me couch all day, playing FIFA and having a cuppa. Best break ever.”

Zayn just shakes his head and keeps eating. When Louis’s finished, he pushes his chair back and puts his bare feet up onto Zayn’s clean, white counter where Zayn usually tries to eat without his food tasting like aged foot.

Louis ignores Zayn’s glare. “You do any new painting since you been back?” Louis asks. Zayn should have expected it because Louis always asks when he comes over. He’s usually the most eager of the boys to check out Zayn’s newest additions to the mess of artwork covering the walls of his graffiti room.

Zayn’s not sure he wants to get into it so he just shakes his head and grabs both of their plates to clean up.

“So you’ve just been drawing then?” Louis asks.

Zayn puts the plates in the dishwasher. “Haven’t done anything really,” Zayn says.

Louis mock gasps as if Zayn’s just told him the sky is actually red. “You? Haven’t been drawing or painting or being that moody little tortured artist we all know and love?”

“Tortured, maybe, but yeah, I’ve not done anything.” Zayn flops down on the couch and switches the TV on again. Maybe Zayn should have been more specific when he invited Louis over, told him it wasn’t a good time for the Zayn Malik art gallery.

It would be fine if Louis could drop it, but Louis can’t leave anything alone. Louis always notices when Zayn is stuck in his own head, and Louis always tries to draw Zayn out of it. Zayn should have really invited Niall over instead.

“So you just don’t feel like painting or what?” Louis asks as he plops down on the other end of the couch and stretches out so his bare, smelly feet are resting in Zayn’s lap. Zayn shoves them off.

Zayn plays with the hem of his hoodie, his fingers itching for another cigarette but he’s not letting himself smoke more than a pack a day. It’s his New Year’s resolution and one of the worst ideas he’s ever had.

“Don’t have any ideas,” Zayn finally says.

Louis thinks about it for a moment before his face lights up. “You could paint a portrait of me! I’m a great model. My cheekbones are almost as prominent as yours.” Louis pulls at his cheeks for emphasis but just ends up looking like he’s trying to make funny faces at a baby.

Zayn laughs and ducks his head. “Yeah, dunno mate.”

Louis snorts. “I’d make a great model. Me mum always told me so.”

Zayn ignores him, but Louis just studies Zayn for a moment before shuffling closer. “Why are you so moody?” he asks, his voice teasing but his face more serious. “What is it? Is it how Perrie’s gone?”

Zayn shrugs and doesn’t really answer because he doesn’t really have an answer. It’s not Perrie. It’s just … just something Zayn can’t put a finger on.

“It’s okay, Zaynie,” Louis coos and leans forward to smack a wet kiss to his cheek. “She’s coming home soon.”

Zayn shoves Louis off of him. “It’s not Perrie,” he protests. “She’s busy. I’m not. It’s fine. Good for her, really.”

“You know, I used to get all pissed off whenever Eleanor was too busy for me,” Louis says. “Like I’m home and free to hang out like she always whines about when I’m away, and suddenly she doesn’t want me around anymore.”

Louis looks over at Zayn and breaks into a wry smile. “Terrible, innit? But then we had a talk about how,” Louis pauses to curl his fingers into quotation marks, “it’s not that she doesn’t want me around, it’s just that she has her own life and can’t drop everything every time I’m home, and now it’s cool. Like if she’s busy or whatever when I want to see her, I just send her flowers or chocolate or something and then she’s extra happy when I see her again. Plus, the sex is great.”

Zayn smirks. “The sex is great. Yeah, Lou. I don’t think I have any problems with that.”

“Fuck off,” Louis laughs. “But really. You do something thoughtful when she’s least expecting it and it’s like, you’re good forever.”

“I’m plenty thoughtful,” Zayn argues. “It’s just like … when she’s gone or whatever, I just get all weird. It’s different than when we’re on tour because I don’t have anything I have to do. So I’m just like lying around being stupid and usually I do something to piss her off and I don’t know how to stop.”

“Have you talked to her about it?” Louis asks.

Zayn shakes his head. “What am I supposed to say? I’m useless when you’re gone? I don’t want her to think I don’t support her career or whatever.”

“Missing her and not supporting her aren’t the same thing,” Louis says.

“No, I know, but like … it’s my problem. She shouldn’t have to deal with this when she’s busy in another country or summat. She doesn’t do that to me.”

“It might make her feel good though,” Louis suggests. “Like she knows you’re sat home pining away for her. Might make her feel wanted.”

Zayn snorts. “Oh shut up. I make her feel wanted plenty.”

“Yeah, well, never hurts to go above and beyond,” Louis says and shrugs. “And if you do tell her and she’s all over your ass when she gets home, don’t say the Tommo didn’t tell you so.”

Zayn rolls his eyes and throws a pillow at Louis’s head before reaching for the pile of video games Louis brought. “Whatever. Wanna play COD? 

 

~-~

 

Zayn’s cocooned in bed later that night, the duvet wrapped around his shoulders and his laptop in his lap with a groggy Perrie staring back at him from the screen. It’s 8 a.m. there, nine hours ahead of London, and Perrie has another full day of interviews and promo while Zayn plans to go to bed and sleep as late as he can.           

She’s telling him about something they did the day before but he’s not really listening. It’s just that she’s wearing one of his hoodies and her hair is kind of messy, her face makeup-free, just like when they wake up together at home and his chest feels tight at the sight of it. That’s how he likes her best – not that her red carpet ensembles or stage outfits don’t look amazing on her, but that freshly woken up look feels like it’s reserved just for him, something only he gets to see, and that’s overwhelming sometimes. It’s such an honest, bare piece of her and he’s not sure what he’s done to deserve that.

“What are you thinking about? You look like you’re off on another planet,” Perrie says.

“Nothing really. Just wish you were here,” Zayn murmurs.

Perrie pouts at him. “Aww, babe, I wish I was home too. Soon though. Just four more days. We’re over halfway there.”

“Yeah, but then you’re off to America right after you get back,” Zayn says. He didn’t mean for those words to slip out, didn’t even really realize he was thinking it. He should have just stayed quiet the way he does around everyone who isn’t in his inner circle because now Perrie’s frowning and it’s about the last thing Zayn wants to see when he’s already feeling so uneasy.

Zayn buries his head in his hands. “I don’t know why I said that. Sorry.”

“No babe, it’s … I get it,” Perrie says. It’s times like these when Zayn feels like he really, really doesn’t deserve her. “It’s the same thing for me when you’re always flying off to different countries. I get it. I really do. It sucks but it’s good, too, yeah?”

“Yeah I don’t know,” Zayn says. He chews on his thumbnail. “You’re better at this than I am.”

Perrie’s lips curl up into the smallest smile. “I just have more practice, is all.”

“Yeah well. I’m sorry,” Zayn says quickly. “I don’t mean to tell you this stuff. I don't want to be, like, pathetic or not supportive while you’re away. It just kind of sucks that you can’t be here.”

“I don’t think you’re not supportive,” Perrie says as she brushes her hair up into a quick ponytail. Something he said has gotten under her skin, he can tell, because she's suddenly not as soft as she seemed seconds ago. She turns the computer as she gets up and starts rummaging through her suitcase. Zayn just watches her for a few moments, and he can almost pretend she’s getting dressed in their room and not thousands of miles away in Japan. “You can talk to me about this stuff, you know,” she says when she faces the screen again.           

Zayn picks at his thumbnail. “I don’t want to bother you with this though,” he says without looking up at the camera.

“You’re not bothering me, Zayn,” she says, and he knows it’s not true because her voice is tight and her face looks distant the way it does whenever he pisses her off. “I just wish you wouldn’t try to hide everything you think would upset me,” she says through the bobby pin she’s holding between her teeth as she fixes the bumps in her hair.

“But I don’t want to upset you. And now you’re getting upset anyway.”

“No, Zayn. I’m getting annoyed that you treat me like I’m so fragile. We’ve been through enough shitty stuff that you should know better.”     

Zayn rests his head in his hands and takes a deep breath. This was a bad idea. He told Louis this was a bad idea.

“Pez, please. I don’t want to do this.”

“Whatever. Listen, I have to get ready. Bus call is in 10 minutes. I’ll talk to you later.”

Perrie at least lets him say goodbye before she cuts off the call, and then Zayn’s alone again in his suddenly too-big bed and quiet house. This is how they always fight. Zayn says something dumb and Perrie pulls away and it’s like Zayn can’t do anything to make it up to her until she decides to forgive him. He sits up, ready to grab a cigarette before he remembers he purposely moved all of them to a drawer in the kitchen to prevent against desperate moments like these. He throws a pillow – Perrie’s – across the room instead and lies back with a groan.

By four in the morning, Zayn is both still awake and still annoyed. He feels eerily like he did the year before, when he was left home alone and missed Perrie and didn’t know what to do with himself, so he threw a party and it ended up turning into a disaster between the two of them. This year, he’s home alone, but he’s still pissed off and unable to sleep without Perrie there next to him.

He ends up watching late night infomercials instead. The idea hits him when one on garden sheds comes on. He remembers when he went to Paris with Perrie, they went on this estate tour where there was this garden that had a gazebo. Perrie had nearly died of excitement when she saw it, told Zayn all about the one her grandmother used to have in her garden and how Perrie spent so much time there as a teenager that her friends would call her grandmother’s house first if they were looking for Perrie.

It can’t be too hard to build a gazebo. It’s just a bunch of wood nailed in a circle. And Louis did say to do something thoughtful for Perrie. So even though the sun is just starting to rise, he can’t help himself from sending a text to the boys anyway.

           

~-~

 

It’s on not very much sleep and not nearly enough fags that Zayn finds himself in his garden the next day trying to figure out how to put a stupid gazebo together. The plan had been a go from the moment Harry texted back at 5:30 in the morning saying he had a friend who owned a garden shop and sold gazebos, and Harry was kind of drunk with Nick at the time, but he said he could get one first thing in the morning and bring it over to Zayn’s that afternoon.

Apparently, by “early afternoon,” Harry meant exactly at noon, which is clearly still too early for Zayn to be out of bed. So Harry makes him breakfast to ease the pain, and when Liam shows up soon after with his grey sweatshirt rumpled and his eyes still squinty from his hangover, Harry starts to make him breakfast too, but Liam turns green at the idea. Then Harry offers to make Liam some orange juice, freshly squeezed that morning of course because that’s how all Harry’s hipster friends drink their orange juice, but Liam just shakes his head and collapses on Zayn’s couch for a quick nap instead.

Niall pops over not long after with a case of beer. He claims all great builders need pints, and Liam still doesn’t seem enthusiastic about the loud company but shows more interest in Niall’s beer than Harry’s juice, which means Harry has to pout about it for a bit in the kitchen. Then Louis ambles in an hour later than everybody else and has the nerve to ask when they’re planning on getting started as if they haven’t all been waiting on Louis anyway. Zayn’s feeling less confident about this plan by the minute.

But within a few hours, they’re all spread out in Zayn’s garden. And as much as Zayn doubts their construction skills, it’s nice being able to do this with all of the boys and kind of impressive that they were all able to drop everything and be in London for this. They’ve all been scattered throughout their break, and while they’ve each hung out with one or two of the other boys at some point, the five of them haven’t hung out at all.

Zayn doesn’t know where to start, so Liam splits them up and assigns them each separate tasks, which goes swimmingly until Harry nearly pounds his index and middle fingers into the ground in an attempt to hammer the posts into place. That leaves Harry stretched out on one of the lounge chairs, banned from building for the rest of the day, and Louis gets busy “lifting Harry’s spirits”, which involves zero construction work and a lot of Louis trying to break his personal keepy-uppy record while he employs Harry to help him count.  

Still, it’s going as well as can be expected and everyone is mostly leaving Zayn alone about the whole Perrie situation until Louis’s football hits Zayn in the back of the head and Louis decides it would be a perfect time to start up a conversation.

“Oi, Z, you’re making us all look bad with this gazebo business, y’know,” Louis says a little too loudly from behind Liam. Zayn’s somewhat suspicious that Louis raised the volume solely to see Liam wince, which he’s doing a lot of what with all the hammering and such. Louis might have confided to Zayn recently that maybe, just maybe, there’s a chance he corrupted Liam a bit too much.

Regardless, Liam’s clearly not pleased with Louis’s decibel level at such a sensitive time in his hangover. “Tone it down, yeah?” Liam grumbles, glaring at Louis from the corner of his eyes as Louis gathers up his football and tousles Liam’s hair. “You make yourself look bad. Don’t need Zayn’s help.”

Louis shrugs, clearly nonplussed. “Yeah, but me bird didn’t finish with me because I was too obvious of a cheating wanker,” Louis says as he slaps the side of Liam’s head. It’s only Louis who can get away with saying something that bluntly critical.

“S’not nice,” Harry protests from his chair.

Zayn looks up at Liam and smirks a bit. “Yeah, but it’s true,” Zayn says, and Liam mock scowls at him. Maybe Zayn can get away with a few shots here and there too.

“Like you’ve never cheated,” Liam argues as he makes grabby hands toward a piece of wood behind Zayn.

“Yeah, but we worked it out.” Zayn shrugs. He hands the wood over to Liam, who fits it into place and checks his work with a level.

“Still don’t know how you got yourself out of that one,” Louis says.

“Me neither,” Zayn admits.

It’s something Zayn is still trying to figure out.

The entire fiasco started from a similar situation to the one he’s in now. He had a few days off while Perrie was away on tour, and he hadn’t known what to do with himself and wasn’t able to visit her on tour. So he sat at home, depressed and antsy and frustrated until Leon decided to try to cheer Zayn up by convincing him to throw a party. It was a good idea until Zayn got so drunk that he believed the girl when she said she wanted to see his room and maybe watch a movie. 

The aftermath of that night was the worst rough patch Zayn and Perrie had ever gone through, but it wasn’t really a fight, not with Zayn admitting he was wrong the entire time. He told her the second he woke up what had happened. He didn’t know what else to do, so he was honest even though he was terrified she would flip out, scream and yell and throw things and finish with him.

But she didn’t get angry, didn’t even yell, and that freaked him out. Instead, she just turned off, seemed so distant and emotionless, and he couldn’t read her at all. They had never been like that. From the start, Zayn was usually able to sense how she felt, but she was a closed book in the days after that night. She refused to say a word around him or be in the same room as him at times, and at other times, she would make him talk her through that night over and over, make him tell her everything he could remember (not much) ad nauseum. But even though she was distant, she hadn’t left and she didn’t force him to leave, so Zayn just stayed and tried to be as open as possible.

She warmed back up to him slowly, and they got into the habit of talking about everything whether it was serious or not. Eventually, Perrie told him she was over it, and Zayn couldn’t believe his luck. Within the passing weeks and months, everything seemed to go back to normal, so much so that he proposed to her in August with no hesitation. 

But after he got home from Asia in November, he started stressing about it more, about whether she actually forgave him and whether he was even worth her time. He never could figure out why she took him back. He knows people don’t forgive forever, and Zayn’s not sure when he’ll run out of chances with her. It doesn’t help that her reasoning for taking him back is the one thing they never talked about, so Zayn gets in the habit of thinking too much and saying too little because he doesn’t want to screw up the happy little bubble they live in.

And now he’s back to where he was a year ago: hopeless without her home while trying desperately to prove he can handle her being gone.

He tries to focus on building, and he’s attempting to finish his final section of the roof when Niall jumps on his back and bites his ear.

Zayn doesn’t even pretend to be angry, just tilts his head back to smile up at Niall. “You slacking off on me, mate?”

“Nope. Finished the base all up, just the way Liam said.” Niall proudly gestures over to the circle of wood. It looks alright, the wood all lined up neat and flat, but Zayn’s not really sure what the base of a gazebo is supposed to look like. They could be royally fucking this up and Zayn would have no way of knowing.

“Looks good,” he says instead and Niall’s entire face lights up.

“Perrie’s going to love it,” Niall enthuses. Zayn doesn’t say anything to that and just smiles back at him.

Niall joins him and Liam with the roof work, and they’re able to finish up the assembly quickly enough that they take a break for pints. Zayn’s hunched over at the end of one of his lounge chairs trying to take in all the work they’ve done on the half-built gazebo spread out on the grass. He takes a swig of his beer as Harry sits down next to him.

“Alright?” Harry asks and pulls Zayn into a side-hug. “You look a little peaky.”

“Nah, I’m fine. Just thinking, you know?”

Harry nods and looks out at the gazebo as well. “S’nice, the way you miss her, I think,” Harry says slowly. “And building this for her and all is like, a genius way of showing it.”

“I reckon it’s all a bit stupid,” Zayn says. He looks away in time to see Louis try (and fail) to open a bottle of beer using the edge of the table.

“What do you mean?” Harry frowns at Zayn.

“Like I’m doing all this to make it up to her, and like, I always have to do something like this when Perrie’s away to make up for stupid shit I do.”

“You don’t always have to make up for things when Perrie’s away,” Harry insists.

“Oh yeah? Name a time when I haven’t.”

Harry furrows his eyebrows doubtfully. “How did you fuck up this time? I bet you didn’t.”

“Pissed her off on the phone last night,” Zayn says as he examines his thumbnail. He nibbles on it before speaking again. “Told her I missed her and she got upset so then I told her I don’t like telling her stuff like that because I don’t like to upset her. Then she told me not to treat her like she’s fragile and hung up on me.”

“That doesn’t sound like your fault,” Harry says. Zayn shakes his head and wraps his arms around himself, tucking his hands into his armpits. His fingers are itching for a cigarette, but he might have stupidly told the boys he was quitting completely so now he can’t smoke in their presence.

Louis chooses that moment to plop down on Harry’s lap and grab Harry’s beer out of his hand.

“So what do you think of it, Z? Is The Tommo Construction Crew going to be good enough for princess Perrie?”

Zayn smiles tightly. “Tommo Construction, yeah? What construction have you done?”

Louis clucks at him. “Keeping dear Harold alive is a tough task, thank you very much.”

“Zayn thinks he has to do this to make up for telling Perrie he misses her,” Harry interrupts, which, no, that’s not exactly what happened.

Louis frowns at Zayn. “Make up for telling her you miss her? How did you fuck that one up? I told you exactly how to do that yesterday.”

“Dunno. She went on about, like, how I never say things I think will upset her and how I think she’s fragile and I should know better or whatever. I don’t know. It all went wrong and now we’re here. Again. Like always when she goes away.”

“Sounds like she’s overreacting,” Louis says. “And then you freaked out. You always think the worst with her, mate. Maybe it was just a bad time and she didn’t mean it.”

“She meant it,” Zayn says. “Nearly hung up on me and everything.”

“Well,” Louis quirks an eyebrow. “Better hope she likes this gazebo then.” Zayn rolls his eyes and Louis laughs and climbs out of Harry’s lap. “But mate, seriously. You’re doing a good thing this time, building this for her,” Louis says, then promptly dumps what’s left of Harry’s beer down the back of Harry’s shirt and darts away before Harry can stop him.

“Hey!” Niall shouts from the other side of the patio. “Don’t waste good beer!”

Zayn groans and goes to wake Liam, leaving Harry to mutter about his ruined t-shirt of which he has 400 others that look exactly the same.

Zayn steadily avoids the way both Louis and Harry and then Niall (because Niall is a perceptive bastard when he wants to be) are looking at him when he insists they get back to work. They have to forget about it when the four of them hoist the top of the gazebo up and hold it in place while Liam secures it all with screws. Then they get so involved with putting the rest of the gazebo together that they lay off any deep discussion for the rest of the afternoon.

 

~-~

 

Zayn wakes up the next morning to realize that he missed his call with Perrie the night before – they arranged to talk every night while she was away because it would work best from a timing standpoint, and now he’s screwed that up too.

He checks Skype once the boys leave, a finished gazebo sitting semi-proudly in his garden, and sure enough, there’s a missed call from Perrie and a text saying to call her back once he gets a chance. She leaves her standard “love you xx” at the end, and it’s enough to convince Zayn he can wait until later when she’s more likely to be done with work for the day.

But then he can’t decide when a good hour to call her would be, and it’s nearly midnight in Japan when he finally works up the nerve to do it.

When she picks up, she’s in bed and looks only half-awake, but she’s wearing his California Love crew neck with the humping bears on it. He can’t help but smile.

“Didn’t know you took that shirt.” Zayn nods toward the screen.

Perrie smiles. “I always sleep in one of your shirts when I’m away.”

Zayn looks down, bashful, and picks at his thumbnail. There’s a little speck of dirt underneath his nail that he can’t get out. Or maybe it’s grass. It’s really not coming off.

“What’d you do yesterday?” Perrie asks through a yawn. She’s much more quiet than usual, and Zayn doesn’t think it’s because she’s tired, but he’s willing to play along just for a little while longer to avoid the inevitable.

“Had the boys over for a bit. We fell asleep playing FIFA. I’m sorry I didn’t call,” he says. He picks at his hair a bit, fluffing it up to give his hands something to do.

“It’s fine,” Perrie says quietly, and he knows it’s not.

He’s not sure what to say so he says nothing, and Perrie just sits silently on the other end, playing with the ends of the sleeves of his shirt.

“So uh, I’m sorry for the other day,” Zayn finally manages. Perrie shrugs and doesn’t look up.

“It’s fine,” she repeats. Zayn grits his teeth in annoyance. He can’t say anything right. He kind of wishes he had something to throw or ball up or something, because it’s like every muscle in his body is tight with frustration.

“If you didn’t want to talk to me, you shouldn’t have told me to call,” Zayn says after another long silence.

“Yeah, well I don’t really know what to say.”

“I’m trying to apologize for the other night, Pez.”

“Thanks, then, I guess. What do you want me to say?”

“Just tell me how I can make it better.”

“You don’t have to make it better, Zayn. You have to like … I don’t know, just not be like that. Trust me that I can handle whatever’s on your mind.”

“Well clearly you can’t,” Zayn points out. “I said one tiny thing to piss you off –“

“That’s the problem!” Perrie interrupts. “You don’t think I can handle anything. You just hide everything from me as if you’re sheltering me or something and I don’t need you to do that. I don’t want you to do that.”

“I don’t hide anything from you, Pez.”

“Yes you do!” she says, and he’s starting to feel like they’re not talking about the same thing but he can’t figure out what she’s getting at. “Anything that’s hard or anything you think would cause a fight or whatever, you don’t tell me. You keep it all from me like I’ll break if you tell me. I won’t break.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says. “What are you talking about?”

But then Perrie’s tearing up, and it’s the only thing that keeps Zayn from throwing his computer across the room. He hates making her cry. It makes his insides twist and his chest ache and it’s even worse when she’s a billion miles away.

“Don’t cry, Pez,” he murmurs. She just shakes her head and sniffles. “I’m sorry if you think I keep anything from you,” he says. “I just don’t want to upset you when you’re gone. But it’s not like I’m hiding anything serious from you. I wouldn’t do that. You should know that. Even when everything happened last year, I didn’t hide it from you.”

“I told you a million times I forgave you for last year,” Perrie says. There are still tears pooling in her eyes. She wipes them away fruitlessly with the sleeve of his shirt.

“It’s not just about last year,” he says, but the second the words come out of his mouth, he realizes it kind of is. Ever since last year, every little thing he does wrong always seems to turn into such a big deal. He looks down, ashamed and frustrated. “Sometimes I feel like you never forgive me,” he mutters before he can think about it. 

“Well if you were me, would you? How would you feel if I called you up tomorrow and said I slept with another guy? Would you ever be able to forgive me for anything after that?”

Zayn groans. “I don’t know, but like, you’re the one who told me you wanted to stay together and work on it. I thought we did. I thought it was better. But then you do shit like this, like tell me you forgave me and then make it very clear you haven’t.”

“I do forgive you, but it’s just, I don’t know. You don’t get it and it’s so frustrating and … like … I just don’t want to end up like my mum and dad.” Perrie freezes right after the words tumble out of her mouth, shocked, and then repeats them slowly, as if she’s only hearing it for the first time. “I don’t want to end up like my mum and dad.”

Zayn can’t do anything but watch as Perrie crumbles on the screen in front of him.

“Pez,” Zayn murmurs. His throat is tight and his room feels too hot all of the sudden, and like, when did this become about her parents? He doesn’t even know what she means. They never really talk about her parents. It’s just a fact of life that her parents are divorced and his aren’t. The only thing she ever said was she was young when it happened, but she seemed fine with it, didn't seem like there was anything there they needed to talk about.

But Perrie can’t stop crying and Zayn can’t hold her through it, so he texts Jade to come sit with her instead. He stays on Skype until Jade gets there and Jade asks Perrie if she wants to hang up. When she nods, a little piece of Zayn’s heart breaks.  

Zayn texts Perrie as soon as Jade ends the call, just a simple “I love you” and a “call whenever you want. I promise I’ll pick up.”

But Zayn doesn’t expect her to call. Why should she when their past two calls have ended so terribly? He’s not sure what the connection is between the two of them and her parents, but clearly he’s said something to make her draw a connection there.

So for the first time in over a year, Zayn starts to wonder if it’s possible for everything to be fine with them, if it’s possible for someone to get over a partner's infidelity. What if, no matter how hard the two of them try, he irrevocably broke whatever semblance of a relationship they could have possibly had? What is he supposed to do then?

Thanks to the time difference between England and Japan, he still has a good chunk of the day ahead of him. But then he looks out the glass sliding doors into the garden and sees the gazebo bare and sad and it hits him.

Zayn spends the rest of the day and all of the next one painting the gazebo. He doesn’t even think about painting, doesn’t wonder if he should keep up with this project with everything going on between the two of them. He just paints. For the first time since she left, he’s finally able to let his creativity take over and follows wherever it leads him.

It’s weird how it works with him. He’ll have no idea what he wants to paint and suddenly colors and shapes and lines just come out of him and end up turning into something all on their own. It feels good, like he can breathe, and he paints so long that second day that the sun sets and he realizes he hasn’t taken a break since starting after breakfast. He has brushes all over the grass and paint all over him and for some reason, he feels settled, like everything is where it’s supposed to be even though it’s not.

 

~-~

 

He wakes up the next morning to a brush of lips on his forehead and the flowery, grapefruit-tinted scent that is wholly Perrie hovering over him. She hasn’t called or texted and neither has he, not since that text he left her when Jade got there.

Zayn tried not to think about what it would be like when she got home, but it’s only once she’s standing in front of him that he realizes he’s been wondering whether she would come home at all.

She looks tired but cozy, wrapped up in the onesie she always wears on long flights and has the bobble hat from his tattoo tugged down over her ears. She stands up and puts a little space between her body and the bed, nervously playing with one of bracelets around her wrist.

He rubs at his eyes and squints up at her, and she just looks so uncomfortable that he instinctively tries to fix it. He reaches out to her, wraps his fingers around her wrists and pulls her down to him so he can hold her close. She comes easily, crawls into bed next to him and burrows her face in his chest.

“Hi babe,” he murmurs, dropping a kiss to the top of her head as he smoothes a hand up and down her back.

“Hey,” she mumbles. Zayn takes her beanie off and runs a hand through her hair. His heart is racing, a mixture of having her this close for the first time in a long time and not knowing how much he can touch her. Perrie’s normally the strong one out of the two of them, and it’s a little intimidating when she goes all meek on him like this.

He just holds her for a while until she finally tilts her face up to him. Her eyes are critical, searching his face for something, and it’s like they’re still a continent apart even though she’s in his arms. Zayn can’t breathe, can’t look away, can’t do anything but hold her gaze and hope that because she’s here, in their bed and in their home, it’s a promise of a chance.

Something clicks in her, the look in her eyes settling as if she’s made some sort of decision, and she surges up, slips her arms around his neck and kisses him.

He can’t control himself, opens up to her easily and loses himself in the soft plush of her lips and the hot twist of her tongue. She’s soft and cozy and pliant under his lips, but there’s an urgency behind it as if she needs this just as much as he does. She presses closer to him, her body tight along the lines of his own, and Zayn’s not really thinking when he rolls them over, locking her in underneath him with his knees on either side of her legs. She slides her hands down, cold against his hot skin, and pulls his hips down into hers. She has to be able to feel him going hard in his boxers, but she just tangles her leg around his and pulls him closer.

He breaks away from her lips and tilts his forehead against hers, needing some space before he loses control but not wanting too much space out of fear she’ll run away. He’s never felt so much at the mercy of someone else until now.

“Pez,” he pants. She’s flushed and breathing heavily underneath him. She tries to tug him back down to her, but he refuses, shakes his head. He’s not going to take advantage.

“I want to,” she says, quiet but firm. “I need to. Zayn, please.”

He looks at her for a long moment and she doesn’t hide, just stares right back at him. It’s not everything, but it’s something, and Zayn knows they probably shouldn’t do this until they talk, but it’s been a long week without her, one of the hardest yet. She trails her fingertips up and down his body, restless like they can’t settle on one part of him. He understands where she’s coming from because he’s the same, wants all of her at once, every bit from the pinch of skin between her toes to the wisps of hair behind her ears.

So he gives in, leans down and captures her lips between his again and the world spins around him, leaving him and Perrie alone in this moment. Zayn lets himself get lost in the smooth, hot wetness of her mouth and barely notices when she shoves his boxers down, subconsciously kicks them off as he wraps an arm around her lower back to lift her farther into him. She grinds her hips into his and whimpers against his chest, pushes at his shoulders to put some space between their bodies and he snaps his head up, confused until she licks her hand and brings it back down between them to wrap around his cock.

A wave of pleasure races hot through his body and he chokes out a breath and squeezes his eyes shut, lets her pump him once, twice, three times before he knocks her arm away and sits up enough to yank on the zipper of her onesie.

“Off, off, off,” he mutters as she scrambles out of the onesie and her underwear, which he tosses somewhere to the side before covering her body with his again. He skims a hand down between her thighs to see if she’s ready, rubs two fingers into her even though she is. She gasps, tugs at his hair so he’ll look at her and he stops.

“Zayn, please,” she whines, her cheeks ruddy and her eyes more desperate than determined. He nods shortly, lines himself up and kisses her as he pushes in.

It’s so much to have her wrapped around him everywhere, holding onto him and letting him in, and he can’t help but thrust in deep and bury his face in her neck. She’s pulling at his hair, running a frantic hand up and down his back, his arms, then pulling at his hips so he’ll go deeper, deeper, deeper. She’s even saying it, more, more, more, a quiet mantra in his ear.

She’s close. He can tell by the way she wraps her leg around the back of his thigh and tilts her head back, but they’re both quiet about it. He can’t decide whether to slip a hand between them and help her finish or whether to see if she can go untouched the way she sometimes does, and he’s too close anyway to keep the thought going long enough to make a decision.

He skims a hand down under her lower back instead, pushing her hips up into him and she grabs at his ass as he quickens his rhythm, both of them riding that connection they create when they slot together just right. He pants into her throat, his eyes squeezed tight because he’s almost there, just needs a few more seconds. He wants her to finish first, and that won’t happen if he looks at her. Then she bites his shoulder and tightens around him, trembling as she comes. It’s all he needs this time, the knowledge that he got her there, and he buries himself as deep as he can inside of her and lets go.

They take a long time to move. Zayn keeps his head cradled in her shoulder, his chest still heaving. He wraps his arms tight around the bottom of her ribs and kisses her neck.

“I love you,” he murmurs into the soft skin just below her ear once he can focus on something other than breathing. “So much, Pez.”

She scratches at his scalp just the way he likes and tightens her hold on him. “I know,” she whispers back, her voice scratchy and raw. Then, softer, “love you too.”

Zayn smiles into her neck and hugs her closer. They lie there for a while, not saying anything but not letting go, and when they finally do move, it’s because her stomach grumbles. They both laugh as Zayn sits up and pulls her with him. “C’mon. I’ve got some of mum’s leftovers in the freezer.”

The second they break apart, it’s like the connection between them snaps. She smiles uneasily and grabs a pair of his joggers and a jumper from the floor, turning her back to him as she pulls them on. Zayn slips into a pair of athletic shorts and is so desperate to get her back that he reaches out for her hand. It’s ridiculous to hold your girlfriend’s hand when you’re walking in your own house, but it feels like he’s losing her when he’s not touching her, so he keeps his grip tight.

They don’t say much while they eat. Zayn thinks about asking her how her flight was or what the last day in Japan was like or if she checked out that street market Harry enjoyed when they were in Japan a few months ago, but the words are too big in his throat and don’t come out.

It’s awkward, and it’s never awkward between the two of them. It wasn’t awkward when they first met each others’ families or moved in together or when they first fought with each other. It wasn’t even awkward the first time they had sex, not even when Perrie told him Tulisa warned her not to go over to his that night because all he would want was sex. It wasn’t awkward when he responded by asking her to be his girlfriend.

But with Perrie near-silent across from him and his stomach doing flips, it’s very awkward and he doesn’t manage to eat much. She doesn’t say anything about it, stays silent while he washes the dishes.

But she stays there. She’s giving him a chance, he knows, and it means something to him that she came home, that she crawled into bed with him, that she’s not running away now.

He knows he has to take that chance, so he clears his throat and tells her he has something to show her even though his stomach is a boiling mess of nerves. He takes her hand and makes her close her eyes, leads her out the sliding door and into the garden and stops in front of the finished gazebo.

“Okay, look,” he says, letting go of her hand to slide an arm around her waist.

Her eyes flutter open, and she blinks a few times. “Zayn,” she murmurs, looking to him and then the gazebo and then back at him like she doesn’t know where to focus her attention.

The gazebo looks much different than when the boys left and it was just a standard shop-version of screwed-together wooden pieces. Zayn painted all of it white except the floor, which he covered in a vibrant pink that matched the ends of her hair. He painted trails of flowers – tulips and daisies, her two favorites -- in oranges and yellows and baby blues and violet, shaded to give them depth as they crawl up the posts. He covered the railings and underside of the roof in spray-painted explosions of color. Then he pasted laminated photos of the two of them and their pets – even Boris and Jack, the ones who died – on the ceiling, and strung fairy lights around the rails and posts.

“So yeah, I haven’t figured out how the lights work yet because there’s nowhere to plug them in,” Zayn says. “But this is it I guess.”

Perrie takes a few steps forward and Zayn stuffs his fists deep into his pockets, unsure whether to stay or follow. She steps inside and looks up at the photos, and when she looks back at Zayn it’s with watery eyes and bitten lips.

“Is it too much?” he asks. “I’m sorry, I just-“

“No, babe, I love it. I …” Perrie shakes her head and beckons him over, so he follows her into the gazebo, leans against the post next to her as she looks back up at the ceiling. “Why?” she asks as she continues to take it all in.

Zayn shrugs and looks at his toes. “I just really missed you. I don’t know. I couldn’t paint, like at all when I got back from mum’s and I didn’t know why and it was like last time, like how I felt before Leon convinced me to throw that party when I really fucked up and I hate that I did that to you. I do. Every day.”

Zayn’s throat is suddenly tight and he wouldn’t say anything else if he could get away with it, but Perrie’s still looking up at him just waiting for him to speak, so he swallows and keeps going.

“I fuck up when I get like that, like earlier this week or last year, and I know I’m not home much so it doesn’t happen all the time now, but like later on, after One Direction, I will be home more and what if I keep being like this? So I’m trying to work on it, and I thought it would be cool if I could, like, make you something instead of fucking up because I miss you and don’t know what to do. But then that didn’t work, so …”

Zayn trails off because his voice is shaky and he can’t hold it in anymore. Perrie’s stroking his back, he realizes, and it’s awful, crying in front of her, because he hates crying in front of anyone, hates how they probably know he’s not as strong as he pretends to be.

But there’s more he needs to say, he knows it, thought about it the entire time he was painting the gazebo, so he screws up the rest of his courage and pulls away from her enough to be able to make eye contact.

“I know I hurt you, Pez, but I want to make it better and sometimes I worry that you don’t,” he says. Her face falls, but he keeps going. “I don’t know what you meant, the other night, about how we’re like your parents, but I want to know. I can build you all the gazebos in the world and it won’t matter, because I can’t help you if you don’t tell me stuff that bothers you that much.”

Perrie sighs and plays with the hem of his shirt. “Yeah. Jesy gave me a talking to for that one,” she says.

“I thought Jesy hated me,” he mutters.

“Jesy doesn’t hate you,” Perrie knots his shirt around her fingers, quiet for a moment. “It’s just … so my parents split up because my mom caught my dad in bed with a couple of groupies while he was on tour and we were babies. She had gone to surprise him. It wasn’t the first time ever, but I think it was the first time since Jonnie and I were born.”

“God, Pez,” Zayn breathes out as it all clicks in his mind. He bangs his head back against the post and squeezes his eyes shut, but that doesn’t stop the images from popping up in his head, of her face when he first saw her after she found out he cheated and how tough she tried to look despite her puffy red eyes, of the year before that when he had to explain why there were girls he hooked up with on tour while he was still trying to get her to give them a shot whenever he was back in England. Of the way Jesy always treated him, cold and standoffish, because obviously she knew and he didn’t.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he finally manages. Perrie’s moved to the corner across from him. She’s sitting with her chin on her knees and she doesn’t look at him.

“I don’t know. At first I didn’t think it mattered, and then it was just like … it felt like if I said it out loud, it would be true. That we’d be like them. And I don’t want to be like them. But then I was just terrified all the time that you would mess up again and I was doing the same thing my mum had done. Like the other day when I was going on about you not telling me things, it wasn’t really true. You do tell me things. But I was so scared of what it meant that we were weird while I was gone that I freaked out at you.”

Perrie sighs. “But I talked to Jesy and Jade and Leigh-Anne a lot the last few days and I don’t know. They said if I didn’t tell you about what happened with my parents, then we’d probably be more likely to be like my parents.”   

Zayn nods, but he’s kind of nauseous. “So what does that mean, like, for us?”

“I don’t know. It’s like … we talked about how we’re different anyway, you and I, because you always at least try to make it better. And I know you are different, I already knew, because I know you try, but it’s hard for me. They said if I want this to work, I have to try just as much as you do. Like forgiveness is not just you making it up to me, but me working at it too and telling you how I feel and where I’m coming from. But even they don’t know what it’s like, to know how much your dad hurt your mum and then have it happen between you and me just…” Perrie bites her lip as the tears leak out, one first and then a whole rush of them.

Zayn flashes back to everything from that morning, from the way Perrie looked at him in bed when she said she needed it, the way she couldn’t talk to him after, the way she’s moved away from him now, the way she’s crying and he’s suddenly sure she’s done with him, that it was all a final goodbye.

But it also doesn’t make sense for her to tell him all of this or try to comfort him before if she’s just going to break up with him. So he crosses over to where she’s curled up on the floor, sits down next to her and rubs her back.

“I want to be over it so badly,” she whispers so quietly that he can barely hear her. “But sometimes I don’t know how.”           

“I don’t know either,” Zayn admits, and he doesn’t really know how he’s keeping it together but he’s managing for now. “But maybe Jade and Jesy and Leigh-Anne are right. Maybe we both have to try harder.”

He pauses and tries to figure out how to explain himself in a way that makes sense. “It’s like … I try all the time not to mess up,” he says. “But sometimes I think maybe I’m so focused on not messing up that I don’t think about how to make things work. Even when the boys and I were building the gazebo, they were telling me how great of an idea it was and how I was doing a good thing this time and all I could think about was how I screwed up.”

Zayn pauses to brush the tears off her cheeks. “Maybe,” he continues, “maybe you’ve been doing the same thing, but like with your parents. Like not that I’m not responsible for what I did -- we wouldn't be in this place if I wasn't so stupid -- but now that it’s in the past, you’re so worried about us turning into what happened to your parents that it kind of feels like that’s what’s happening to you even if it’s not.”

Perrie looks down at her shoes for a minute. He can see her chewing over his words, and it’s agonizing waiting for her reaction. He’s not sure how long it takes – maybe just a moment, but it feels like hours – before she looks back up at him, her jaw set thoughtfully.

“I think,” she starts. “Yeah. I get that.” She doesn’t say anything else, but from the way she smiles, Zayn knows he’s forgiven.

He can’t help but grin back and pulls her into his lap, crushing her in a relieved hug until she’s laughing against his chest and he's joining in at the crook of her neck.

He pulls back so he can kiss her but she stops him with a palm flat against his chest. “Babe, did you say you built this with the boys?” she asks.

“Yeah. Why?”

“It’s not going to fall apart on top of us, is it?”

Zayn laughs. “Didn’t we just talk about trying to be more positive?”

Perrie frowns and looks around. “I’m just saying. I know what Harry and Niall are like when they try to build something. Louis too. Remember when he tried to put together our hoover? He nearly –“

“Pez,” Zayn interrupts. “Trust me, yeah?”

Perrie looks at him for a long moment, then smiles. “Yeah okay.”

           


End file.
